Weary lion takes Coward's way out

Noel Coward's long forgotten tour here is the subject of a new cabaret, writes Joyce Morgan.

Being a celebrated wit is a frightful burden. Which is why Noel Coward began with a mea culpa - of sorts - when he arrived in Sydney. "I must apologise for the legend which has grown up about me in the last 15 years ... that I am continuously and monotonously amusing," he said.

It is not the sort of apology superstars might utter today, when sexual or pharmacological dalliances are more likely to prompt a rush of regret to the head. But the British playwright, songwriter and raconteur was clearly a superstar when he stepped on to Australian soil in 1940 to begin a hectic seven-week tour. Women mobbed him, the press trailed him and when exhaustion overtook him even the prime minister and the Herald weighed in.

Coward's trip presents a curious snapshot of a more innocent and awestruck Australia, as much concerned with the impression it makes on its visitors as vice versa. Although he may have received as much attention as the Beatles on his first Australian tour, while their 1964 trip is regularly evoked, Coward's is at best a footnote in history. "Nobody seems to know about it," says director Rodney Fisher. "Occasionally someone says to me 'Oh, my aunt met him.' "

Which is one reason Fisher decided to breath life into this largely forgotten episode about the man who penned such songs as Mad Dogs and Englishmen and Don't Put Your Daughter on the Stage, Mrs Worthington and whose plays such as Private Lives and Blithe Spirit are regularly revived - the latter by the Sydney Theatre Company a couple of months ago.

Fisher has written and will direct Darling, It's Noel!, a cabaret starring Amanda Muggleton and Dennis Olsen. Fisher rejects suggestions that Coward's work is quaintly outmoded, all camp froth and bubble, evening dress and cigarette holders. The regularity with which Coward's works are performed suggests an enduring appeal, he says. Dramatists such as Harold Pinter and Patrick Marber have acknowledged Coward's influence on them, says Fisher.

Coward was invited to Australia to entertain the troops, raise money for the Red Cross and make broadcasts about the British war effort. He came as a guest of the Australian government - although official largesse did not extend to paying his boat fare. Coward stumped up his own. The 40-year-old Coward had barely stepped down the Monterey's gangplank at Circular Quay, on November 16, 1940, before his form and style were under scrutiny.

"There is more to Mr Coward than meets the eye," the Herald noted. "Superficially, he may still be the social satirist and successful songwriter, but beneath exquisite manners and perfect fitting clothes runs a robust vein of doggedness."

Coward had arrived in Australia after a stint in Paris at the start of World War II where he ran a British propaganda office. There he had been privy to confidential documents. But these were documents he could describe to a Sydney audience without fear of disclosing classified information. "[They] could have been read in the Reichstag without raising any other emotion than deadly boredom," he said.

He told of his Paris experience to one of the many Sydney audiences he would address over the next few days, which included entertaining troops at Ingleburn and an off-the-cuff speech to the Royal Empire Society.

"Art and politics do not mix," he told the society. "...I should consider it presumptuous and most unwise if an eminent politician were to give a lecture on the theatre. My own political views are unprofessional and unuttered."

They weren't unuttered for long. He barely paused for breath before delivering a patriotic speech about how the only hope for the future lay with the unity of the English-speaking people. His status hovered between statesman - he stayed at The Lodge as the prime minister, Robert Menzies', guest - and superstar, as he was mobbed by fans.

About 400 women surrounded Coward after he performed at Sydney's Theatre Royal and he was again besieged at the premiere of his Present Laughter and This Happy Breed at Kings Cross's Minerva Theatre, later the Metro. But within a week of arriving, Coward was so exhausted he had to cancel part of his tour to North Queensland.

"I am absolutely jaded and tired out," he said. "All I want to do is sit in the sun and rest, and keep away from crowds."

His R&R was shortlived. He was back on deck in Sydney four days later. But his exhaustion prompted commiserations from the prime minister, who criticised the excessive itinerary set for Coward. "My experience is that the tendency is to overwork all our visitors," said Menzies.

The Herald, too, was alarmed and roared about the pace of the merciless itinerary in an editorial entitled "An exhausted 'lion' ".

" The [program] arranged for him was far too severe... He is an actor-playwright of great distinction, a man well endowed with the social graces, and a most agreeable entertainer; he is being treated as though he had no right to any privacy, leisure, or rest ... This sort of persecution cannot assure pleasant memories of Australia to our distinguished visitor."

It wasn't the pace of his itinerary that ultimately prompted a few critical words from Coward about his Australian experience. As he prepared to leave he noted the country's similarity to Britain. "The same spirit is here, the same indomitable British point of view with all its virtues and all its defects, and the same insularity, the same hatred of criticism, the same complacency and smugness, and the same capacity for sacrifice."

And he noted, too, a certain pettiness and jealousy between states and the Sydney-Melbourne rivalry. How things change.

"I found myself forced to say to a reporter in Melbourne ... that I liked Melbourne much better than Sydney," Coward said. "I was told publicly by an eminent gentleman in Perth that it was a great privilege for me to visit Western Australia. This was absolutely true, but it seemed strange to hear it said with such sublime complacency, rather like arriving at somebody's house and being told by the host how fortunate you are to be eating such delicious food in such distinguished company."

He left having raised £10,000 for war charities and took some Australian literary works with him. Not that he seemed overly impressed. "I have read numerous plays while I have been here, but they all suffered from the same complaint - none of them was about Australia," he said.

It would be another couple of decades before Australian dramas began challenging British dramas for centre stage.

As he prepared to set sail, Coward, who died in 1973, described his Australian visit as one of the greatest experiences of his life. He had kept a diary of his trip - but was not about to reveal it. Asked when he might publish it, he replied: "Not until 500 years after my death and then in Russian."